In Episode 221 of The Robotic Report Podcast, hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman recap the most important robotics information of the week. This week on the present, we additionally welcome Fareed Aljawhari, founder and CEO of Micropolis Robotics, for a dialog about constructing a robotics firm in Dubai.
Fareed Aljawhari is the founder and CEO of Micropolis Robotics.
Fareed Aljawhari based Micropolis Robotics in 2014. The firm went public on the New York Inventory Trade in March 2025, buying and selling underneath the image MCRP.
Micropolis’ objective is to make purposeful transportation safer, cleaner, and extra usable. To realize that, it’s creating an autonomous platform that may be simply configured for brand new use instances.
The corporate plans to offer mobility-as-a-service choices in dense city environments. Micropolis mentioned it’ll deal with the autonomous management, charging, upkeep, and upgrades for the fleet of automobiles.
In 2020, Micropolis joined forces with Dubai Police. And within the course of, it solidified the way forward for the autonomous rover trade. Aljawhari mentioned the corporate is concentrated on testing on non-public and public roads because it strikes in direction of launching the primary fleet.
The Micropolis Robotics M Platform is designed as a generic, road-ready autonomous platform. | Credit score: Micropolis Robotics
Present timeline
- 6:57 – Information of the week
- 23:00 – Interview with Fareed Aljawhari, founder and CEO, Micropolis Robotics
Information of the week
Waymo’s freeway driving units the stage for wider robotaxi enlargement
Waymo is driving on freeways now. It introduced this week that its robotaxis will start providing rides on freeways throughout San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
The corporate is beginning with a choose variety of public riders, which it expects to develop within the coming months. Waymo has additionally expanded its service space within the San Francisco Bay Space. Its robotaxis now go all the way down to San Jose, Calif., together with curbside service at San Jose Mineta Worldwide Airport.
Try the service space within the map beneath.
Waymo’s new service map within the San Francisco Bay Space. | Supply: Waymo
Waymo mentioned it’ll start serving riders in San Diego and Las Vegas subsequent yr. The corporate didn’t share a timeline for when it’ll start serving riders in Detroit.
The information got here just some weeks after Waymo mentioned it’ll will deliver robotaxi companies to London in 2026. The firm’s different worldwide plans embody Tokyo. As well as, Waymo has mentioned it intends to launch in Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, and Nashville within the coming years.
Locus Robotics ships first Array unit to DHL
The primary items of the brand new Locus Array cell manipulator arrived at DHL this week for testing. The system expands the corporate’s fleet of picking-assistance methods with robot-to-goods (R2G) workflows, mentioned Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics.
The Array can pull a tote from a shelf and take away an merchandise from the tote for a selected buyer order. There isn’t any product video of the robotic in motion but.
The brand new Locus Array robotic at DHL. Supply: Locus Robotics
Objectways new enterprise mannequin to create and label knowledge for humanoids
Objectways workforce members are recording actual human demonstrations, annotating each movement, and reviewing 1000’s of clips to show robots carry out duties like folding towels, packing packing containers, or sorting gadgets. Every correction and label in the end turns into a part of the robotic’s expertise and helps retraining AI fashions.
This can be a trendy, humanoid robotic model of the “mechanical turk” downside of a decade in the past with picture labeling, mentioned the corporate, which was based in 2014. In keeping with The Los Angeles Instances, Objectways has greater than 2,000 staff; about half of them label sensor knowledge from autonomous automobiles and robotics, and the remainder work on generative AI.
